IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2104.00668.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A new spin on optimal portfolios and ecological equilibria

Author

Listed:
  • Jerome Garnier-Brun
  • Michael Benzaquen
  • Stefano Ciliberti
  • Jean-Philippe Bouchaud

Abstract

We consider the classical problem of optimal portfolio construction with the constraint that no short position is allowed, or equivalently the valid equilibria of multispecies Lotka-Volterra equations with self-regulation in the special case where the interaction matrix is of unit rank, corresponding to species competing for a common resource. We compute the average number of solutions and show that its logarithm grows as $N^\alpha$, where $N$ is the number of assets or species and $\alpha \leq 2/3$ depends on the interaction matrix distribution. We conjecture that the most likely number of solutions is much smaller and related to the typical sparsity $m(N)$ of the solutions, which we compute explicitly. We also find that the solution landscape is similar to that of spin-glasses, i.e. very different configurations are quasi-degenerate. Correspondingly, "disorder chaos" is also present in our problem. We discuss the consequence of such a property for portfolio construction and ecologies, and question the meaning of rational decisions when there is a very large number "satisficing" solutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Jerome Garnier-Brun & Michael Benzaquen & Stefano Ciliberti & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2021. "A new spin on optimal portfolios and ecological equilibria," Papers 2104.00668, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2021.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2104.00668
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.00668
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pafka, Szilárd & Kondor, Imre, 2004. "Estimated correlation matrices and portfolio optimization," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 343(C), pages 623-634.
    2. Joël Bun & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Marc Potters, 2017. "Cleaning large correlation matrices: tools from random matrix theory," Post-Print hal-01491304, HAL.
    3. Galluccio, Stefano & Bouchaud, Jean-Philippe & Potters, Marc, 1998. "Rational decisions, random matrices and spin glasses," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 259(3), pages 449-456.
    4. S. Ciliberti & M. Mézard, 2007. "Risk minimization through portfolio replication," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 57(2), pages 175-180, May.
    5. Pafka, Szilárd & Kondor, Imre, 2003. "Noisy covariance matrices and portfolio optimization II," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 319(C), pages 487-494.
    6. Imre Kondor & G'abor Papp & Fabio Caccioli, 2016. "Analytic solution to variance optimization with no short-selling," Papers 1612.07067, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2017.
    7. Pierre-Alain Reigneron & Vincent Nguyen & Stefano Ciliberti & Philip Seager & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2019. "The Case for Long-Only Agnostic Allocation Portfolios," Papers 1906.05187, arXiv.org.
    8. Sankaran, Jayaram K. & Patil, Ajay A., 1999. "On the optimal selection of portfolios under limited diversification," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(11), pages 1655-1666, November.
    9. Jos'e Moran & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2019. "May's Instability in Large Economies," Papers 1901.09629, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2019.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jean Philippe Bouchaud & Matteo Marsili & Jean-Pierre Nadal, 2023. "Application of spin glass ideas in social sciences, economics and finance," Post-Print hal-04145594, HAL.
    2. Axel Pruser & Imre Kondor & Andreas Engel, 2021. "Aspects of a phase transition in high-dimensional random geometry," Papers 2105.04395, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2021.
    3. Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2024. "The Self-Organized Criticality Paradigm in Economics & Finance," Papers 2407.10284, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2024.
    4. Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Matteo Marsili & Jean-Pierre Nadal, 2023. "Application of spin glass ideas in social sciences, economics and finance," Papers 2306.16165, arXiv.org.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jerome Garnier-Brun & Michael Benzaquen & Stefano Ciliberti & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2021. "A new spin on optimal portfolios and ecological equilibria," Post-Print hal-03378915, HAL.
    2. Istvan Varga-Haszonits & Fabio Caccioli & Imre Kondor, 2016. "Replica approach to mean-variance portfolio optimization," Papers 1606.08679, arXiv.org.
    3. Diane Wilcox & Tim Gebbie, 2004. "An analysis of Cross-correlations in South African Market data," Papers cond-mat/0402389, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2006.
    4. Giacomo Livan & Jun-ichi Inoue & Enrico Scalas, 2012. "On the non-stationarity of financial time series: impact on optimal portfolio selection," Papers 1205.0877, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2012.
    5. Varga-Haszonits, Istvan & Caccioli, Fabio & Kondor, Imre, 2016. "Replica approach to mean-variance portfolio optimization," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 68955, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Wilcox, Diane & Gebbie, Tim, 2007. "An analysis of cross-correlations in an emerging market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 375(2), pages 584-598.
    7. Rudi Schafer & Nils Fredrik Nilsson & Thomas Guhr, 2010. "Power mapping with dynamical adjustment for improved portfolio optimization," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 107-119.
    8. Schäfer, Rudi & Guhr, Thomas, 2010. "Local normalization: Uncovering correlations in non-stationary financial time series," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(18), pages 3856-3865.
    9. Shinzato, Takashi, 2018. "Maximizing and minimizing investment concentration with constraints of budget and investment risk," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 490(C), pages 986-993.
    10. Fabio Caccioli & Imre Kondor & G'abor Papp, 2015. "Portfolio Optimization under Expected Shortfall: Contour Maps of Estimation Error," Papers 1510.04943, arXiv.org.
    11. Lisewski, Andreas Martin & Lichtarge, Olivier, 2010. "Untangling complex networks: Risk minimization in financial markets through accessible spin glass ground states," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(16), pages 3250-3253.
    12. Christian Bongiorno & Damien Challet, 2020. "Nonparametric sign prediction of high-dimensional correlation matrix coefficients," Papers 2001.11214, arXiv.org.
    13. Fabio Caccioli & Imre Kondor & G'abor Papp, 2015. "Portfolio Optimization under Expected Shortfall: Contour Maps of Estimation Error," Papers 1510.04943, arXiv.org.
    14. Takashi Shinzato, 2015. "Self-Averaging Property of Minimal Investment Risk of Mean-Variance Model," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-24, July.
    15. Li, Yan & Jiang, Xiong-Fei & Tian, Yue & Li, Sai-Ping & Zheng, Bo, 2019. "Portfolio optimization based on network topology," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 515(C), pages 671-681.
    16. Varga-Haszonits, I. & Kondor, I., 2007. "Noise sensitivity of portfolio selection in constant conditional correlation GARCH models," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 385(1), pages 307-318.
    17. El Alaoui, Marwane, 2015. "Random matrix theory and portfolio optimization in Moroccan stock exchange," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 433(C), pages 92-99.
    18. Leonidas Sandoval Junior & Italo De Paula Franca, 2011. "Correlation of financial markets in times of crisis," Papers 1102.1339, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2011.
    19. Papp, Gábor & Kondor, Imre & Caccioli, Fabio, 2021. "Optimizing expected shortfall under an ℓ1 constraint—an analytic approach," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111051, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Bai, Zhidong & Liu, Huixia & Wong, Wing-Keung, 2016. "Making Markowitz's Portfolio Optimization Theory Practically Useful," MPRA Paper 74360, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2104.00668. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.